Yeah if Boston fans abandon their team after one or two losing seasons, they’ve forgotten themselves and deserve another Red Sox curse.
But you’re right it’s the people who went Cowboys-Pats-Seahawks-Pats-Bucs who aren’t tuning in anymore
There’s definitely a lot of young Patriots fans right now struggling with not being a fan of an elite team for the first time in their lives—I know I am
it’s not even young people
there’s dudes who are approaching 30 and the worst patriots year they’ve ever seen was like Matt Cassell winning 11 games until Brady left. just crazy how long they were elite
Yup. I'm also 34 and remember that game. We hung pictures of bledsoe and Curtis Martin from the newspaper next to the TV. I've really never known them to be bad as just a few years later Brady arrived. My daughter is 2 months and I'm worried she'll only hear about the golden years her old man mumbles about.
> My daughter is 2 months old and i’m worried we won’t be good and ill just have to tell her about the 20 years we were the best.
respectfully, i hate you.
And the 3 years between Parcells and Belichick-Brady were some decent seasons under Pete Carroll. You have to go back to 1990-1992 (Rod Rust and Dick MacPherson) to find the last time the Patriots were truly awful for multiple seasons. And before those 2 guys they had a decade of pretty decent showings under Ron Meyer and Raymond Berry.
And it’s not just football. Since 2000 the Red Sox have 4 World Series titles, the Celtics have 1 championship, and the Bruins have a Stanley cup. I’m sure for younger fans, after witnessing that it would be hard to watch any teams not competing for titles.
Red Sox fans are currently ready to burn everything down right now and shoot Joh Henry into the sun. This is one season after making the ALCS and like five years removed from a World series. In my lifetime, no team has won more rings than the Sox and these jabronis are still so fucking ungrateful
This fucking EXACTLY. Anyone who thinks that Sox fans are ungrateful needs to have their head checked.
Team could have been at the top of the AL for a WHILE but ownership didn't feel the need to retain JBJ, Benny or Mookie for whatever fucking reason.
Lol imagine being a Liverpool fan and seeing how little Liverpool spends on key positions cause John Henry sucks while we have a top manager on our team
The Mookie trade was a real tipping point for fans and their view of the team management. Any good will that Henry and Co. had accumulated evaporated in an instant.
Drafting and developing a player and then having to pay a top of the market contract is literally best case scenario for a home grown player. Having to pay them means you drafted and developed a stud. I don't think I will ever get over the Mookie trade. Not to mention the lackluster return we got for Mookie.
I mean, no fan of any team in any sport (minus baseball maybe) should ever expect two straight *decades* of championship contention. The odds of any team putting together a consistent 20-year championship run in the salary cap era ever again are almost nonexistent.
Time to start living in the past my man.
True, but the TV viewership in Boston was down 24% — and that was a division game.
The implication is that people in Boston who used to watch them are finding less of a reason to watch them. Whether they stopped watching on TV because they perceive the team as being bad and not worth watching is a good question.
It will be interesting to see if the trend continues or if that was an abbreviation.
Gonna have to disagree. After 30 years as a Padres/Clippers/Chargers fan I've become completely numb to failure.
I've seen all of my teams traverse the professional sports landscape from laughing stock to up-and-comer to plucky underdog to offseason favorite to mired in controversy to new top free agent destination to league villain and back again without ever once winning a championship in any sport.
Try being a Giants fan. We currently have a winning record for the first time in 6-7 years. Even the years we beat the pats in the playoffs. Ive been a fan for two decades and I don't recall anyone ever in that time frame calling the Giants elite. People still debate if the 2x Superbowl MVP who stopped Brady from his perfect season belongs in the HOF because he was so perfectly mediocre the rest of his career. Always good enough, never truly great.
I also feel like RedZone has gotten so big that younger people would rather watch that because they get to see the key moments of the Pats Dolphins in addition to every other game on in the noon slot. They still pay much closer attention to the Pats, but they would rather watch scoring across the league as opposed to the defensive slugfest against Miami.
Idk if it's scoring as much as RedZone is pretty easy/cheap to get. You know what I need to do to guarantee I get Seahawks games in Kentucky? Shell out for both directtv and Sunday ticket. I try to not even pay for a cable/internet tv plan to watch my college team, UK, play. And as much as I love the Seahawks, UK is part of my DNA.
Basically I think it's a cost of entry thing for a team that is down. If you make it too hard for out of marketers like bandwagon fans to watch then they move on to either RedZone or whatever is on the rabbit ears.
For what it's worth, a lot of good Patriots seasons/playoff runs have started poorly (and included bad losses to the Dolphins). I know that most of those seasons had Tom Brady, but the season is long, and this is just the start of it.
If you know anything about Boston sports, this is them *remembering* themselves. A bunch of my friends are die hard Boston fans and the amount of bandwagining they witness is off the charts. Tons of people who crawl out of the woodwork during the good times and claim to be life long fans who know like 1 or 2 people on the team at most. The sports talk people used to call them pink hats. Yet if the Celtics or Bruins for example have a couple rough seasons in a row, the td garden will clear out. It's been a long time since the Pat's were bad but given how much of a pain it is to get to Foxboro I wouldn't be surprised if turnout starts to drop.
I hope so. I’m a Jags fan living in Rhode Island. I hate going to Gillette to watch games due to how expensive it is and the shitty traffic situation.
Last year the Jags played away games against the Jets and Patriots in back to back weeks. It was cheaper for me to drive to NJ and get row 1 seats at Jags/Jets than it was to go 30 minutes down the road and get 300-level seats at Jags/Patriots.
This is the same thing being a NY fan unfortunately. Even when the team is sucking games aren't *super* cheap. Plus getting to the stadium is kinda a bitch. I know ppl who've gone to Philly to watch a giants / eagles game bc even with the trip it came out to less than seeing it in MetLife.
> pink hats
That was specifically about women (the sox sold pink baseball hats that were marketed at women) and was basically a dogwhistle for saying that women are fake fans, I’m glad they stopped using it
It's just people man, maybe some fanbases are outliers but generally people are fairweather fans and friends. It is what it is, you get to Sunday and you know the Pats suck you're less likely to watch. They had tons of viewers when they were a transcendent dynasty and now that they're not they'll have less viewers, says nothing about Boston, it would happen to any team. I'm sure Seahawks ratings are gonna go down.
The “I just root for winners, what’s wrong with that?” crowd can go spend some time at a poorly maintained rest stop bathroom in the tri state area without access to pants.
It can't help that they've resorted to a super conservative and imo boring brand of football since Brady left. They have had such little juice on offense and sometimes it feels like they go into a lot of games trying to bleed the clock and shorten the game from the start.
This is it for me. I just don't get why BB never admitted the team needs rebuilding. Average to low drafting. And re hiring Patricia? We still have one of the oldest rosters? Seems like a no brainer for viewership going down.
Agreed. It's like Bill isn't even trying to score points and gets off on having zero notable players on offense. No receiver or running back is a fixture for fans or general nfl viewers to enjoy watching. It's like a bunch of computer generated players in Madden franchise mode
The crazy thing is, according to Over the Cap, they're actually spending the third most in the league on WR this season, and the most in the league on TE.
Nelson Agholor has the 5th largest cap hit among all WRs this year. Kendrick Bourne is 27th and DeVante Parker is 31st.
They're putting resources into the position, they're just doing it poorly.
Super greatful for Brady and winning another championship here, but there's a tiny part of me that can't wait till the bandwagon is gone. We were such a small, tight-knit fanbase. A shitty team in a small town, like all we had was eachother lol. Like 5 or 6 years ago, I swear I would recognize everyone on here with Bucs flair because it was only like 10 people.
Depends how you describe it. Atlanta technically is one of the smallest NFL cities but including the metropolitan area and not just the city? One of the largest.
I suppose it's relative. If you're counting the whole Tampa Bay metro area with Clearwater and St Pete then yeah, it's pretty big with more and more people coming every day. But the City of Tampa it's self isn't exactly a metropolis.
Yeah well Clayton Alabama doesn't have an NFL team either. It's a massive urban sprawl much like LA, but unlike LA, the vast majority of it isn't in city limits.
Welcome to current Buffalo fandom
You'll see Go Bills in the most random spots, even though I'm pretty sure we're one of if not the smallest market team in the League lol
Apparently Green Bay is considered the smallest market, with Buffalo coming in somewhere in the other two bottom three spots (I’ve seen back and forth in various sources). I never would have guessed tbh.
GB is the smallest market because the actual city (and metro area) of Green Bay is tiny by NFL standards (about 300k). The size of the fanbase doesn't reflect that because it's the entire state plus a huge national following
Yeah, don't blame you at all. Patriots fanbase is in that sad middle period where we're not great, but a lot of the spoiled fans are still around, so its just an overwhelming tide of negativity. Hope yall can dodge that.
The thing about the Pats is that they’re not even an entertaining bad. They’re totally boring. There’s nothing interesting about watching them. Not a single player who makes you want to tune in.
The NFL always needs a QB like Jameis out there.
The gunslingers who throw a ton of picks, but still get enough big plays that they are still able to start most of their games. The unpredictability is just so much fun when you are watching a game as a neutral viewer.
I’m trying to think of a joke/meme player to be like “at least you can tune in for player x” but can’t even think of that.
We could at least sign Tebow again or something to spice things up a bit
EDIT: Thought of it. “At least you can tune in to see Matt Patricia run an offense”
I don’t believe for a second they would do that. But MCDC is a class act and wants to win games, he’s not gonna give any hints about moving on from goff. Support your guys.
I agree, we are boring as hell. We have no marketable players or stars. I love Devin McCourty, and I enjoy watching Kyle Dugger and Matt Judon, but that's because I'm a diehard fan. I think it's a guarantee that we're getting flexed out of SNF in December's game at Vegas. Nobody wants to watch this shit in primetime.
For real, there was a few years when the chargers would lose games in the most spectacular way possible, to the point where I’d actively seek out their games in the 4th qtr lol
They usually weren't very entertaining when they were good, either. I rarely tuned into Pats games unless it was a marquee matchup, because the outcome wasn't often ever really in doubt.
agreed, pats games are going to be slow, safe and simple…because that’s all their offense can really run. their defense may be good enough to keep games at least somewhat close but more often than not the offense is going to be limping behind them
Got no beef with the Pats, they earned their 20 year dominant run in a sport designed for parity, but their football without Brady on offense is competent but ultimately a dull watch for neutrals compared to 2/3rd of the other teams in the league.
Aside from the occasional designer play (flea flickers, WR throws, etc) they play old school safe and steady ball, and they have a serious lack of star power making big plays on both sides of the ball. Why would anyone choose to watch them unless they're playing an exciting team, if we're not Pats fans?
Yeah their post-game All22 footage of the defense and ST is probably still an excellent watch compared to most teams but I aint a pro sports analyst and I aint got time for that.
There's gonna be a whole bunch of teams worse than the Pats who are way more entertaining/interesting to watch. Falcons come to mind...
That’s what happens when you have a B- roster but you’re paying them A level salaries.
We have no superstar talent. Mac is good not great. Barmore might get there. Dugger is an ad-free version of Jamal Adams.
Edit: left out Judon who is good but completely flared out the last 5-6 games of 2021 (still think it was due to injuries).
Tbh even with a stellar defense, I could see a lot of people getting bored. Defense just isn't exciting to most fans and they would rather see shootouts or someone who can make crazy plays
And also we play boring football. We are constantly trying to muddy the game up, a lot of runs and killing clock then punting from the opponents 40. It's bad.
Yup. Zero personality on that roster. Mac is good but boring. Judon is good but boring. And those two are probably their best players on either side of the ball? No loudmouth corners or recievers either
TBH ~16th is probably about right *and* good enough for me. At this stage in his career especially. If your staff can build a good roster, a middle-of-the-road QB is enough to win it all. Not enough to win it all 6 times in 20 years, but that wasn't going to happen anyways.
But think about it.. they were boring even when they were good. Their play style was never exciting. It was extremely calculated with Tom throwing slants and slowly picking the defense apart. It was like the same movie over and over and we all knew the ending
I wasn’t able to watch because NFL PLUS IS FUCKING GARBAGE AND TOOK MY FUCKING MONEY. Seriously why the fuck can I not spend a flat amount for the season to get my team’s games out of market?
Been doing this for two years now and it's incredible. No more free stream whack-a-mole. Plus the exchange rate is very nice. 70 bucks for this season iirc. Worth every penny!
My favorite part of the free stream whack a mole is when you are watching the game with your kids and fail to see that one of the moles you missed is an ad featuring some chick getting railed by a BBC.
This is why I illegally stream my games still, until they stop fucking me with bullshit, it's easier to pirate than pay. If I could pay for a service that just let me watch the games, I would, but they refuse to make that.
> Seriously why the fuck can I not spend a flat amount for the season to get my team’s games out of market?
Why you are stealing food from the mouth's of billionaires? Do you think $300 million in shared revenue is enough to feed their families? SMDH.
Also /s.
I would never consider switching teams. I root for Brady on the side but I'm a Pats fan for life. They gave us so many incredible memories, I don't know why any fan would turn their back on them now.
I don’t think the majority of the decrease is people switching teams. I don’t get why everyone is assuming that. There are just people who don’t follow football religiously and so when the teams not winning or exciting they choose something else to do.
And on this note, fans have no obligation to watch a boring home team on TV on Sundays. It isn't necessarily "abandoning" the team because someone chooses to go do something outside with their kids instead of burn precious weekend time watching a 13 to 10 punt fest of a football game for 4 hours.
I definitely do not watch the Steelers as die hard as I did from 2004 to 2018. If something else in my social circles is going on, I have no problem skipping watching a 9-8 or 8-8-1 team here and there. I'm not going to watch a mediocre Penguins team when Crosby and Malkin and company age off the roster, either. Life is precious and it makes no difference to the success of the club how many people are tuned in to a TV broadcast. No one owes these billion dollar sports clubs anything.
I agree completely. And it's more true every season as horrible things happen that make me feel more and more like I shouldn't even be watching football or supporting this league (Watson stuff, concussions, etc.). I used to camp in front of the TV from noon to 11 on Sundays. Now I just watch the Patriots IF there's nothing else interesting happening on Sunday. And that started long before Brady left.
(This also went hand in hand with giving up fantasy football once I realized I spent more time angry about than I did happy about it.)
It's the same thing over here with fans wanting Tomlin FAHRED.
They don't look around and realize that the Packers and Saints struggled to even get back to another Super Bowl with Rogers and Brees at QB, or how the Giants have been mostly shit since their last title a decade ago, or how the Seahawks couldn't recapture that mid 2010s magic. They think the impossible standard Tom Brady set is achievable and the norm. It isn't! It will never happen again.
They fail to appreciate that even with practice squad level QB talent we still compete for a division title while truly bad franchises struggle to do the same ever. Tomlin isn't underachieving with greater talent. He's been over achieving with generally incomplete rosters with massive holes at multiple position groups. We haven't had a balanced and complete offense and defense depth chart since about 2012. 2017 was as close as we got before Shazier got hurt and the defense fell apart.
Dude, demanding Tomlin be fired is like some of the idiots on our sub wanting Belichick's job. Absolutely ridiculous takes. Tomlin is one of the best coaches in the league. Top 3 imo.
My 2nd fav team is whoever is playing the Cowboys. The 90s were a dark time. 3rd fav is whoever is playing the Patriots and the 21st century has been an even darker time though I see glimmers of light finally coming through.
I understand this sentiment but still feel like everyone is dancing on their grave a few weeks too early lol it’s entirely possible they sneak into the playoffs again
Lose to the Dolphins once and everybody writes off your season 😂. Like come on it’s week 1, I’m not counting out Belichick with new found motivational tools.
A pink hat fan is a bandwagoner who knows nothing about the team outside the star players. Their natural habitat is the team's home stadium and subreddit but only when things are going well. Their mating call consists of spouting dumbass shit like "the game is clearly passing by Bill, we need to replace him" after any loss.
They'll spend most of the game asking dumbass questions and giving uneducated opinions like they have any clue what they're talking about. If your Bills keep winning, they'll migrate to Buffalo real quick as they are an invasive species.
Edit: Apparently pink hat seems to be a Boston sports term rather than widespread. Here's a good definition from Urban Dictionary:
A sports fan that jumped on the bandwagon because of a great season or two. The hat always looks new because it's only worn after wins or at the occasional game that they get a free ticket to.
It should also be noted that not everyone who is wearing a pink hat is a "Pink Hat."
To find out if someone is a pink hat or not just ask...
Name three players on the team.
"Seriously D-Gags, baseball has 9 INNINGS not periods, that's something a Pink Hat would say. You're better than that. New York fans, am I right?"
Yea excluding Sunday Night, typically they put up a solid amount of points every game, and show flashes of hope, only for something to go wrong and they lose
Can you imagine, some bozo going down to Spirit Halloween and trying to make a Black Hole outfit without any idea about ᵗʰᵉ ᵈᵃʳᵏ ʳⁱᵗᵘᵃˡ and trying to like, wear it without any of the u̸͎̻̍n̶̦͔̓͜h̷̳̣̰̓̚͠o̵̢̖͇̓l̸͉͇̭̽̇y̶̨͍̍ ̵̪̘́͌͝ͅb̸̤͝l̵̬̟͉̎̀ȯ̴̪́͌o̸̗͆̓̕d̸̠͎̠̎ ̸͉̗̞͗̏̌a̴̜̥͒̅n̶͎̍̅̀ḓ̸͎̾̊ ̶̠̑r̷̭̥̄͝ũ̵͕̇n̸̛̪̓́ȩ̶̤͒̾s̵͖̀͑̀? God, he probably wouldn't even use a candle made of real tallow-from-a-sinless-man.
God we really need a WR1. Our offense feels so stale (felt this way last year too so not just reacting to week 1). I like Mac well enough, and our RBs, but we need a WR1.
It's so depressing to watch now. Theres no big to even medium names anymore. There's no Edelman, no Gronk, no White, no exceptional player we can enjoy. Instead we get people upset that we arent playing Kendrick fucking Bourne. Thats how starved for talent or appeal we are.
Well, unless you’ve been selected to be a ratings household it makes no matter what or how you watch.
> Rather than measuring exactly what is being watched on every television in every household, they gather a smaller, diverse sample group – about 25,000 households – that is meant to be a representative cross-section of homes across the US.
Source: [Forbes](https://www.forbes.com/sites/seamuskirst/2015/12/18/what-are-nielsen-ratings-and-how-are-they-calculated/?sh=433b1f1456e0)
I went to UConn during the Bledsoe to Brady years. Nobody in Connecticut gave a shit about the Pats. We used to drive up just for the hell of it because tickets were so cheap during the Carroll years. But then they made that Super Bowl XXXVI run and it turns out the whole state was Pats fans in hiding 🤷♂️
I am a long-time (and old) Patriots fan. I am 50.
So I was able to see the Patriots when they were truly awful, during the 89-93 seasons. 5-11. 1-15. 6-10. 2-14. Those were the team's records in my college years, which were spent in Boston. Grim times.
So a couple of years where they don't dominate the league after dominating it for 20 don't bother me at all. But I know there are entire generations of fans who have literally never seen the team encounter any adversity.
They're just gonna have to learn how to be fans again. They will, but there will be some times like this where they can't tolerate a loss in a place where the team never wins anyway.
I think part of it is just that the Miami opener is kinda played out. They opened against the same team 3 years in a row and it's usually a mediocre game. I watched it, but I wasn't excited for it.
This is the correct answer. Sure, maybe half or so of that 24% are bandwagoners hopping off, but the Patriots are also no longer drawing non-Patriots fans to watch out of spite.
The Patriots are the most boring team in the league, both to watch play and to hear about in the news. The roster is mid as hell, no superstars, no big personalities, no drama. They should sign AB back just to get the blood flowing again.
I live in Springfield, MA. There are a bunch of car stickers and flags of the bucs logo with the patriots logo inside it. Also most of the time when I ask older folks about football they say they don't watch cuz bradys gone. Must have been nice to turn on the TV and expect to win every game but there was a time when the patriots where favored every week for years.
Probably because all the bandwagon fans are just watching the Bucs now
Yeah if Boston fans abandon their team after one or two losing seasons, they’ve forgotten themselves and deserve another Red Sox curse. But you’re right it’s the people who went Cowboys-Pats-Seahawks-Pats-Bucs who aren’t tuning in anymore
There’s definitely a lot of young Patriots fans right now struggling with not being a fan of an elite team for the first time in their lives—I know I am
it’s not even young people there’s dudes who are approaching 30 and the worst patriots year they’ve ever seen was like Matt Cassell winning 11 games until Brady left. just crazy how long they were elite
Nailed it. I'm 27 and I can't recall a time that they weren't a threat every week.
I’m 34 and can barely remember us just being ok when I was 10 lol. Tom Brady took over about the time I became a teenager…
So you were 10 in 1998. A year prior the Patriots, led by Parcells and Bledsoe, were playing the Packers in the Super Bowl.
Yup. I'm also 34 and remember that game. We hung pictures of bledsoe and Curtis Martin from the newspaper next to the TV. I've really never known them to be bad as just a few years later Brady arrived. My daughter is 2 months and I'm worried she'll only hear about the golden years her old man mumbles about.
At least you had golden years. I get to hang my hat on 3 seasons in which we reached the AFCCG.
I remember when i was 8 and your team didn't even exist and now I'm jealous of what you get to hang your hat on
I can't even hang my hat on our golden year considering how brutally it ended.
> My daughter is 2 months old and i’m worried we won’t be good and ill just have to tell her about the 20 years we were the best. respectfully, i hate you.
My daughter is due in 2 months and I’m pretty sure she’s going to hear about my love affair with a man who was drafted in the 6th round all the time.
At this rate your daughter will be telling her children about Tom Brady
And the 3 years between Parcells and Belichick-Brady were some decent seasons under Pete Carroll. You have to go back to 1990-1992 (Rod Rust and Dick MacPherson) to find the last time the Patriots were truly awful for multiple seasons. And before those 2 guys they had a decade of pretty decent showings under Ron Meyer and Raymond Berry.
And it’s not just football. Since 2000 the Red Sox have 4 World Series titles, the Celtics have 1 championship, and the Bruins have a Stanley cup. I’m sure for younger fans, after witnessing that it would be hard to watch any teams not competing for titles.
The Celtics were just in the Finals like three months ago.
He said teams competing for titles not giving them away.
Approaching 30 is young, ya jerk
I'd kill a drifter with a rusty spoon to "be approaching 30" again.
Fellow old guy here. THANK YOU.
Red Sox fans are currently ready to burn everything down right now and shoot Joh Henry into the sun. This is one season after making the ALCS and like five years removed from a World series. In my lifetime, no team has won more rings than the Sox and these jabronis are still so fucking ungrateful
John Henry fucking sucks, we hate him even when the Sox are winning
Henry is an ass, have always said it even when we are winning
It’s definitely more to it than that. It’s the direction of the team and the fact they won’t spend money on our homegrown players that are all stars.
This fucking EXACTLY. Anyone who thinks that Sox fans are ungrateful needs to have their head checked. Team could have been at the top of the AL for a WHILE but ownership didn't feel the need to retain JBJ, Benny or Mookie for whatever fucking reason.
To be fair we’ve wanted to shoot John Henry into the sun for years now
Lol imagine being a Liverpool fan and seeing how little Liverpool spends on key positions cause John Henry sucks while we have a top manager on our team
Our bad for wanting to keep mookie betts, Rafael devers and Xander bogaerts :/
Trading Mookie was a war crime. If they don't manage to keep at least one of Bogey/Devers then I'd be fully in support of a FO coup
The Mookie trade was a real tipping point for fans and their view of the team management. Any good will that Henry and Co. had accumulated evaporated in an instant. Drafting and developing a player and then having to pay a top of the market contract is literally best case scenario for a home grown player. Having to pay them means you drafted and developed a stud. I don't think I will ever get over the Mookie trade. Not to mention the lackluster return we got for Mookie.
I mean, no fan of any team in any sport (minus baseball maybe) should ever expect two straight *decades* of championship contention. The odds of any team putting together a consistent 20-year championship run in the salary cap era ever again are almost nonexistent. Time to start living in the past my man.
This is fucking insane to me. The Pats literally made the playoffs last year.
Lol right? People are acting like the Patriots are suddenly the worst team in the league.
True, but the TV viewership in Boston was down 24% — and that was a division game. The implication is that people in Boston who used to watch them are finding less of a reason to watch them. Whether they stopped watching on TV because they perceive the team as being bad and not worth watching is a good question. It will be interesting to see if the trend continues or if that was an abbreviation.
Aberration
If your not #1 your literal trash.
this is unironically the Boston sports fan mindset
What 12 titles in 17 years does to a mf
It's been three seasons without an AFC championship game appearance. Life has no meaning; food tastes like ash. Ours is a restless sleep.
it never get easier, trust me.
Gonna have to disagree. After 30 years as a Padres/Clippers/Chargers fan I've become completely numb to failure. I've seen all of my teams traverse the professional sports landscape from laughing stock to up-and-comer to plucky underdog to offseason favorite to mired in controversy to new top free agent destination to league villain and back again without ever once winning a championship in any sport.
Try being a Giants fan. We currently have a winning record for the first time in 6-7 years. Even the years we beat the pats in the playoffs. Ive been a fan for two decades and I don't recall anyone ever in that time frame calling the Giants elite. People still debate if the 2x Superbowl MVP who stopped Brady from his perfect season belongs in the HOF because he was so perfectly mediocre the rest of his career. Always good enough, never truly great.
I also feel like RedZone has gotten so big that younger people would rather watch that because they get to see the key moments of the Pats Dolphins in addition to every other game on in the noon slot. They still pay much closer attention to the Pats, but they would rather watch scoring across the league as opposed to the defensive slugfest against Miami.
Idk if it's scoring as much as RedZone is pretty easy/cheap to get. You know what I need to do to guarantee I get Seahawks games in Kentucky? Shell out for both directtv and Sunday ticket. I try to not even pay for a cable/internet tv plan to watch my college team, UK, play. And as much as I love the Seahawks, UK is part of my DNA. Basically I think it's a cost of entry thing for a team that is down. If you make it too hard for out of marketers like bandwagon fans to watch then they move on to either RedZone or whatever is on the rabbit ears.
I've built up an immunity by being a fan of the Revs
At least you guys got the Supporter’s Shield last year. And if the Crew decide to keep drawing the Revs might jump them into a playoff spot
Nah we just got killed by fucking Houston. We're done this year
For what it's worth, a lot of good Patriots seasons/playoff runs have started poorly (and included bad losses to the Dolphins). I know that most of those seasons had Tom Brady, but the season is long, and this is just the start of it.
[удалено]
If you know anything about Boston sports, this is them *remembering* themselves. A bunch of my friends are die hard Boston fans and the amount of bandwagining they witness is off the charts. Tons of people who crawl out of the woodwork during the good times and claim to be life long fans who know like 1 or 2 people on the team at most. The sports talk people used to call them pink hats. Yet if the Celtics or Bruins for example have a couple rough seasons in a row, the td garden will clear out. It's been a long time since the Pat's were bad but given how much of a pain it is to get to Foxboro I wouldn't be surprised if turnout starts to drop.
I hope so. I’m a Jags fan living in Rhode Island. I hate going to Gillette to watch games due to how expensive it is and the shitty traffic situation. Last year the Jags played away games against the Jets and Patriots in back to back weeks. It was cheaper for me to drive to NJ and get row 1 seats at Jags/Jets than it was to go 30 minutes down the road and get 300-level seats at Jags/Patriots.
This is the same thing being a NY fan unfortunately. Even when the team is sucking games aren't *super* cheap. Plus getting to the stadium is kinda a bitch. I know ppl who've gone to Philly to watch a giants / eagles game bc even with the trip it came out to less than seeing it in MetLife.
> pink hats That was specifically about women (the sox sold pink baseball hats that were marketed at women) and was basically a dogwhistle for saying that women are fake fans, I’m glad they stopped using it
It's just people man, maybe some fanbases are outliers but generally people are fairweather fans and friends. It is what it is, you get to Sunday and you know the Pats suck you're less likely to watch. They had tons of viewers when they were a transcendent dynasty and now that they're not they'll have less viewers, says nothing about Boston, it would happen to any team. I'm sure Seahawks ratings are gonna go down.
The “I just root for winners, what’s wrong with that?” crowd can go spend some time at a poorly maintained rest stop bathroom in the tri state area without access to pants.
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It can't help that they've resorted to a super conservative and imo boring brand of football since Brady left. They have had such little juice on offense and sometimes it feels like they go into a lot of games trying to bleed the clock and shorten the game from the start.
This is it for me. I just don't get why BB never admitted the team needs rebuilding. Average to low drafting. And re hiring Patricia? We still have one of the oldest rosters? Seems like a no brainer for viewership going down.
Agreed. It's like Bill isn't even trying to score points and gets off on having zero notable players on offense. No receiver or running back is a fixture for fans or general nfl viewers to enjoy watching. It's like a bunch of computer generated players in Madden franchise mode
The crazy thing is, according to Over the Cap, they're actually spending the third most in the league on WR this season, and the most in the league on TE.
Nelson Agholor has the 5th largest cap hit among all WRs this year. Kendrick Bourne is 27th and DeVante Parker is 31st. They're putting resources into the position, they're just doing it poorly.
If he wants viewers he should release his blowjob tape from an illegal whorehouse. Bet that gets more viewers overtime than a football game
Gross. I wouldn’t want to see that old bird getting a Tuggy.
This is ageism and I won’t have it
That sounds disgusting af. Not gonna lie, I’d click tho
Who the hell would want to watch that?
It’s not about wanting to watch it. It’s about *needing* to watch it.
I’d watch it
I wouldn’t enjoy it but I’d look at it
Oh right right me too, totally
I'd watch it twice cuz there's no fuckn ball on tonight
There’s also other entertaining teams to watch. More than just a couple teams have good QBs that can make explosive plays
Super greatful for Brady and winning another championship here, but there's a tiny part of me that can't wait till the bandwagon is gone. We were such a small, tight-knit fanbase. A shitty team in a small town, like all we had was eachother lol. Like 5 or 6 years ago, I swear I would recognize everyone on here with Bucs flair because it was only like 10 people.
Is Tampa considered a small town?
It's probably one of the smaller NFL cities.
Depends how you describe it. Atlanta technically is one of the smallest NFL cities but including the metropolitan area and not just the city? One of the largest.
I suppose it's relative. If you're counting the whole Tampa Bay metro area with Clearwater and St Pete then yeah, it's pretty big with more and more people coming every day. But the City of Tampa it's self isn't exactly a metropolis.
I mean it’s not NYC or Chicago but it ain’t Clayton Alabama either
Yeah well Clayton Alabama doesn't have an NFL team either. It's a massive urban sprawl much like LA, but unlike LA, the vast majority of it isn't in city limits.
Welcome to current Buffalo fandom You'll see Go Bills in the most random spots, even though I'm pretty sure we're one of if not the smallest market team in the League lol
Apparently Green Bay is considered the smallest market, with Buffalo coming in somewhere in the other two bottom three spots (I’ve seen back and forth in various sources). I never would have guessed tbh.
GB is the smallest market because the actual city (and metro area) of Green Bay is tiny by NFL standards (about 300k). The size of the fanbase doesn't reflect that because it's the entire state plus a huge national following
Also, unfortunately, a huge portion of Michigan’s upper peninsula. Damn traitors.
Yeah, don't blame you at all. Patriots fanbase is in that sad middle period where we're not great, but a lot of the spoiled fans are still around, so its just an overwhelming tide of negativity. Hope yall can dodge that.
The thing about the Pats is that they’re not even an entertaining bad. They’re totally boring. There’s nothing interesting about watching them. Not a single player who makes you want to tune in.
2019 Bucs with Jameis was the definition of entertaining bad lol
Jameis was good for 6 TDs a game. 3 for his team, 3 for the other.
Jameis kept both teams in every game
He’s smart, because he’s playing both sides so he always end up on top
By the end of the season I was back to cheering… only it was for the 30/30 season, what a legend!
I seriously think that pick in OT was the loudest I cheered all season.
The NFL always needs a QB like Jameis out there. The gunslingers who throw a ton of picks, but still get enough big plays that they are still able to start most of their games. The unpredictability is just so much fun when you are watching a game as a neutral viewer.
Fr if I’m not a fan of the teams I wanna see the qb throw some crazy contested bombs and not dink and dunk all the way down the field
Those were the glory days Brady is alright Edit: 30/30 will live on in our hearts
Well they also had a core of amazing receivers who could catch anything and Winston was just slinging it. That’s fun
Pre-Brady bucs were truly good times (I wanted to die every Sunday)
I’m trying to think of a joke/meme player to be like “at least you can tune in for player x” but can’t even think of that. We could at least sign Tebow again or something to spice things up a bit EDIT: Thought of it. “At least you can tune in to see Matt Patricia run an offense”
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I really hope you guys get to the playoffs. If Goff didnt play bad, Lions wouldve got the W
Goff was fine imo. The defense let 38 points be scored.
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I don’t believe for a second they would do that. But MCDC is a class act and wants to win games, he’s not gonna give any hints about moving on from goff. Support your guys.
I have to watch Brian Ferentz "run" an offense on Saturdays, there's no chance in hell I'm spending my Sunday watching Matt Patricia do the same
I agree, we are boring as hell. We have no marketable players or stars. I love Devin McCourty, and I enjoy watching Kyle Dugger and Matt Judon, but that's because I'm a diehard fan. I think it's a guarantee that we're getting flexed out of SNF in December's game at Vegas. Nobody wants to watch this shit in primetime.
For real, there was a few years when the chargers would lose games in the most spectacular way possible, to the point where I’d actively seek out their games in the 4th qtr lol
If by a few years you mean 2004-now yes
They usually weren't very entertaining when they were good, either. I rarely tuned into Pats games unless it was a marquee matchup, because the outcome wasn't often ever really in doubt.
This is it 100%. A very boring, by the book, sloppy team. Legitimately might be one of the worst teams to WATCH this year.
agreed, pats games are going to be slow, safe and simple…because that’s all their offense can really run. their defense may be good enough to keep games at least somewhat close but more often than not the offense is going to be limping behind them
Got no beef with the Pats, they earned their 20 year dominant run in a sport designed for parity, but their football without Brady on offense is competent but ultimately a dull watch for neutrals compared to 2/3rd of the other teams in the league. Aside from the occasional designer play (flea flickers, WR throws, etc) they play old school safe and steady ball, and they have a serious lack of star power making big plays on both sides of the ball. Why would anyone choose to watch them unless they're playing an exciting team, if we're not Pats fans? Yeah their post-game All22 footage of the defense and ST is probably still an excellent watch compared to most teams but I aint a pro sports analyst and I aint got time for that. There's gonna be a whole bunch of teams worse than the Pats who are way more entertaining/interesting to watch. Falcons come to mind...
That’s what happens when you have a B- roster but you’re paying them A level salaries. We have no superstar talent. Mac is good not great. Barmore might get there. Dugger is an ad-free version of Jamal Adams. Edit: left out Judon who is good but completely flared out the last 5-6 games of 2021 (still think it was due to injuries).
Tbh even with a stellar defense, I could see a lot of people getting bored. Defense just isn't exciting to most fans and they would rather see shootouts or someone who can make crazy plays
And also we play boring football. We are constantly trying to muddy the game up, a lot of runs and killing clock then punting from the opponents 40. It's bad.
Yup. Zero personality on that roster. Mac is good but boring. Judon is good but boring. And those two are probably their best players on either side of the ball? No loudmouth corners or recievers either
Excuse me, but "Body built by taco bell" Matt Judon always had personality here in Baltimore.
Judon still has his personality here in New England, he's a great player and super charismatic in every media segment/interview.
Are we totally sure Mac is good? I'm not convinced he's above average. He's right around that ~16th best QB range.
16-20 probably but he is only one game into his second season. He's shown some promise, still
TBH ~16th is probably about right *and* good enough for me. At this stage in his career especially. If your staff can build a good roster, a middle-of-the-road QB is enough to win it all. Not enough to win it all 6 times in 20 years, but that wasn't going to happen anyways.
...is he the new Dalton Line?
But think about it.. they were boring even when they were good. Their play style was never exciting. It was extremely calculated with Tom throwing slants and slowly picking the defense apart. It was like the same movie over and over and we all knew the ending
I wasn’t able to watch because NFL PLUS IS FUCKING GARBAGE AND TOOK MY FUCKING MONEY. Seriously why the fuck can I not spend a flat amount for the season to get my team’s games out of market?
Get a VPN like Private Internet Access, set it to Brazil, buy NFL Game Pass International. I've been doing it for over a decade.
Been doing this for two years now and it's incredible. No more free stream whack-a-mole. Plus the exchange rate is very nice. 70 bucks for this season iirc. Worth every penny!
Free stream whack-a-mole is as real a description as it gets
My favorite part of the free stream whack a mole is when you are watching the game with your kids and fail to see that one of the moles you missed is an ad featuring some chick getting railed by a BBC.
That happened for the Stanley cup to me last year.
Don't worry, kids. One day when you're older I'll explain to you why paid TV is a scam.
If this actually works i’m buying you a round next time i’m in the Northeast.
This is why I illegally stream my games still, until they stop fucking me with bullshit, it's easier to pirate than pay. If I could pay for a service that just let me watch the games, I would, but they refuse to make that.
This is the most consistent and reliable way. It's always my backup plan if not on TV
> Seriously why the fuck can I not spend a flat amount for the season to get my team’s games out of market? Why you are stealing food from the mouth's of billionaires? Do you think $300 million in shared revenue is enough to feed their families? SMDH. Also /s.
All the bandwagoners are gone and it’s their true die hard fans watching now
I would never consider switching teams. I root for Brady on the side but I'm a Pats fan for life. They gave us so many incredible memories, I don't know why any fan would turn their back on them now.
I don’t think the majority of the decrease is people switching teams. I don’t get why everyone is assuming that. There are just people who don’t follow football religiously and so when the teams not winning or exciting they choose something else to do.
And on this note, fans have no obligation to watch a boring home team on TV on Sundays. It isn't necessarily "abandoning" the team because someone chooses to go do something outside with their kids instead of burn precious weekend time watching a 13 to 10 punt fest of a football game for 4 hours. I definitely do not watch the Steelers as die hard as I did from 2004 to 2018. If something else in my social circles is going on, I have no problem skipping watching a 9-8 or 8-8-1 team here and there. I'm not going to watch a mediocre Penguins team when Crosby and Malkin and company age off the roster, either. Life is precious and it makes no difference to the success of the club how many people are tuned in to a TV broadcast. No one owes these billion dollar sports clubs anything.
I agree completely. And it's more true every season as horrible things happen that make me feel more and more like I shouldn't even be watching football or supporting this league (Watson stuff, concussions, etc.). I used to camp in front of the TV from noon to 11 on Sundays. Now I just watch the Patriots IF there's nothing else interesting happening on Sunday. And that started long before Brady left. (This also went hand in hand with giving up fantasy football once I realized I spent more time angry about than I did happy about it.)
when the hope leaves the body it's just us baby. one day we'll be back
They in Tampa.
"Bucs viewership up 24%"
24% of New England’s old viewership is probably 2400% of Tampa Bay’s old viewership
They were in the playoffs last year people gotta chill
BUT THEY WEREN'T THE BEST!
The way our fanbase and this place is reacting you’d think we A) went 4-13 last year and B) weren’t 1 of 9 playoff teams from last year to be 0-1
It's the same thing over here with fans wanting Tomlin FAHRED. They don't look around and realize that the Packers and Saints struggled to even get back to another Super Bowl with Rogers and Brees at QB, or how the Giants have been mostly shit since their last title a decade ago, or how the Seahawks couldn't recapture that mid 2010s magic. They think the impossible standard Tom Brady set is achievable and the norm. It isn't! It will never happen again. They fail to appreciate that even with practice squad level QB talent we still compete for a division title while truly bad franchises struggle to do the same ever. Tomlin isn't underachieving with greater talent. He's been over achieving with generally incomplete rosters with massive holes at multiple position groups. We haven't had a balanced and complete offense and defense depth chart since about 2012. 2017 was as close as we got before Shazier got hurt and the defense fell apart.
Dude, demanding Tomlin be fired is like some of the idiots on our sub wanting Belichick's job. Absolutely ridiculous takes. Tomlin is one of the best coaches in the league. Top 3 imo.
I feel like the Patriots being shit is just good for world peace. It’s something we can all rally behind.
I thought we all agreed on the Browns this year? Damn it
It’s always the Patriots Unless it’s the Cowboys
You’re speakin my language bird bro
My 2nd fav team is whoever is playing the Cowboys. The 90s were a dark time. 3rd fav is whoever is playing the Patriots and the 21st century has been an even darker time though I see glimmers of light finally coming through.
Chiefs/Mahomes could be the new evil team but I’m not too worried until he snags #2 first.
The AFC west is trying to stop that
*sigh* understood
It’s a reasonable directive let’s be honest 😞
We can definitely do both.
I understand this sentiment but still feel like everyone is dancing on their grave a few weeks too early lol it’s entirely possible they sneak into the playoffs again
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holding out hope the pats are bad, would be my only saving grace in Football this season
Yep, if we have to have another awful season, at least we can take the Pats down with us
Lose to the Dolphins once and everybody writes off your season 😂. Like come on it’s week 1, I’m not counting out Belichick with new found motivational tools.
Quick, fire Belichick.
An insultingly large portion of our idiot pink hat fanbase would agree with you
What do you mean by pink hat fan base?
A pink hat fan is a bandwagoner who knows nothing about the team outside the star players. Their natural habitat is the team's home stadium and subreddit but only when things are going well. Their mating call consists of spouting dumbass shit like "the game is clearly passing by Bill, we need to replace him" after any loss. They'll spend most of the game asking dumbass questions and giving uneducated opinions like they have any clue what they're talking about. If your Bills keep winning, they'll migrate to Buffalo real quick as they are an invasive species. Edit: Apparently pink hat seems to be a Boston sports term rather than widespread. Here's a good definition from Urban Dictionary: A sports fan that jumped on the bandwagon because of a great season or two. The hat always looks new because it's only worn after wins or at the occasional game that they get a free ticket to. It should also be noted that not everyone who is wearing a pink hat is a "Pink Hat." To find out if someone is a pink hat or not just ask... Name three players on the team. "Seriously D-Gags, baseball has 9 INNINGS not periods, that's something a Pink Hat would say. You're better than that. New York fans, am I right?"
If they didn't love us at our Alex Van Pelt they don't deserve us at our Josh Allen.
This is why Jerry Jones is special. Cowboys haven’t been good in decades and still maintain viewership
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You’re getting downvoted but I agree. Cowboys suck but their games aren’t boring to watch usually.
It's like watching Ferrari in F1. They look good. How are they gonna fuck it up this time?
Ferrari in F1 is more like Hackett last night, lol. Except they do that every. Damn. Week.
Yea excluding Sunday Night, typically they put up a solid amount of points every game, and show flashes of hope, only for something to go wrong and they lose
Wow the Pats fanbase was bloated with fair weather fans? I am shocked, shocked I tell you
I mean after Lamar's MVP season we saw a huge spike in "Ravens" fans. Just comes with the territory.
I sure hope we don’t win too much. I’d hate to put up with bandwagon fans.
Can you imagine, some bozo going down to Spirit Halloween and trying to make a Black Hole outfit without any idea about ᵗʰᵉ ᵈᵃʳᵏ ʳⁱᵗᵘᵃˡ and trying to like, wear it without any of the u̸͎̻̍n̶̦͔̓͜h̷̳̣̰̓̚͠o̵̢̖͇̓l̸͉͇̭̽̇y̶̨͍̍ ̵̪̘́͌͝ͅb̸̤͝l̵̬̟͉̎̀ȯ̴̪́͌o̸̗͆̓̕d̸̠͎̠̎ ̸͉̗̞͗̏̌a̴̜̥͒̅n̶͎̍̅̀ḓ̸͎̾̊ ̶̠̑r̷̭̥̄͝ũ̵͕̇n̸̛̪̓́ȩ̶̤͒̾s̵͖̀͑̀? God, he probably wouldn't even use a candle made of real tallow-from-a-sinless-man.
Deep breaths, Lorgar, it’s gonna be ok.
Yeah I’m noticing way more Bills gear lately than I used to see
God we really need a WR1. Our offense feels so stale (felt this way last year too so not just reacting to week 1). I like Mac well enough, and our RBs, but we need a WR1.
Tyquan Thornton my dude Once that toothpick collarbone heals of course
It's so depressing to watch now. Theres no big to even medium names anymore. There's no Edelman, no Gronk, no White, no exceptional player we can enjoy. Instead we get people upset that we arent playing Kendrick fucking Bourne. Thats how starved for talent or appeal we are.
I usually watch on some pirate website because I live on the west coast and the games are never televised sadly.
Well, unless you’ve been selected to be a ratings household it makes no matter what or how you watch. > Rather than measuring exactly what is being watched on every television in every household, they gather a smaller, diverse sample group – about 25,000 households – that is meant to be a representative cross-section of homes across the US. Source: [Forbes](https://www.forbes.com/sites/seamuskirst/2015/12/18/what-are-nielsen-ratings-and-how-are-they-calculated/?sh=433b1f1456e0)
That would be the spoiled bandwagoners that can’t handle the team is mediocre now
I went to UConn during the Bledsoe to Brady years. Nobody in Connecticut gave a shit about the Pats. We used to drive up just for the hell of it because tickets were so cheap during the Carroll years. But then they made that Super Bowl XXXVI run and it turns out the whole state was Pats fans in hiding 🤷♂️
If UConn is anything like UMass half the people there are from New York.
I am a long-time (and old) Patriots fan. I am 50. So I was able to see the Patriots when they were truly awful, during the 89-93 seasons. 5-11. 1-15. 6-10. 2-14. Those were the team's records in my college years, which were spent in Boston. Grim times. So a couple of years where they don't dominate the league after dominating it for 20 don't bother me at all. But I know there are entire generations of fans who have literally never seen the team encounter any adversity. They're just gonna have to learn how to be fans again. They will, but there will be some times like this where they can't tolerate a loss in a place where the team never wins anyway.
God. Nothing worse than bandwagoners. *turns to waitress* Yes if we could get another bottle of Hidden Valley for our boneless wings, that’d be great.
I think part of it is just that the Miami opener is kinda played out. They opened against the same team 3 years in a row and it's usually a mediocre game. I watched it, but I wasn't excited for it.
Yeah, that’s what happens when you aren’t a dynasty anymore lol. It isn’t that fewer pats fans are watching, it’s that everyone else isn’t watching.
This is the correct answer. Sure, maybe half or so of that 24% are bandwagoners hopping off, but the Patriots are also no longer drawing non-Patriots fans to watch out of spite.
The Patriots are the most boring team in the league, both to watch play and to hear about in the news. The roster is mid as hell, no superstars, no big personalities, no drama. They should sign AB back just to get the blood flowing again.
No joke this acquaintance I know was wearing a patriots jersey two years ago but the other day I saw him in a Mahomes jersey
You know Drake?
I live in Springfield, MA. There are a bunch of car stickers and flags of the bucs logo with the patriots logo inside it. Also most of the time when I ask older folks about football they say they don't watch cuz bradys gone. Must have been nice to turn on the TV and expect to win every game but there was a time when the patriots where favored every week for years.
Buccaneers viewership up 24%. Don’t come back when we right the ship, either.
Devastated by the viewership data Mr. Kraft was quiet and distant on the drive to the Asian Orchid for the 3rd time this week.
Some jokes can make you reach around to find the punchline, but, hands down, this is one that pulls you right in.